question regarding media files playable on ones website.

[nthl0gik]

i was wondering .... i am building a website currently that would showcase media files i've created ,..... songs in mp3 & other related audio clips (possibly in *.wav). i want to have a visitor just play the song ... and NOT downloaded it. are there certain permissions that have to be set to restrict this download. or if there is some sort of script/HTACCESS type way that i could employ that would be permissible with the server administration here. i just want people to hear my songs but NOT download them. i tried playing around with the permissions settings on my end to see if i could fix it right in my file manager, but i couldn't get it to work right. any suggestions ????

thanks ahead of time.

 

[essellar]

You can't actually prevent downloads, no. The best you can do is to make them difficult to find by using obfuscated file names and coding the player's main movie (if you're using Flash) to fetch the files. If you're using an HTML 5 player (like jPlayer), you would need to encode the filenames and have JavaScript feed the decoded filenames to the player. Note that none of these approaches are perfect, and the user can discover the files. But the files absolutely have to be downloaded in order to play at all. The best you can do server-side is to base your permissions on the HTTP REFERER ("leech protection"), but the HTTP REFERER can easily be spoofed in the request (and there are extensions for every browser that will let you modify the request headers). If you try to get too clever, you're going to find your stuff on The Pirate Bay if it's any good, since ticking people off has its consequences. If you don't want people to have things, don't put them on the web -- use low-quality or time-limited samples, and put the real thing behind a paywall.